Olive Garden (Portage)
6700 S. Westnedge AvenueThis is the last of my revisits for a while. This one also has a funny story to make it worth reading.
A lot of L’s friends go to Olive Garden when we’re out of town on skating competitions. We do not. I find someplace local to eat or we pick up fast food. If I’m going to spend money on a sit down dinner, I want something other than a chain restaurant.
L had a synchronized skating competition coming up (the week after we ate at Olive Garden but the weekend before I wrote those) and one of the team meals was going to be from Olive Garden. J was telling some friends that she was excited about it because she had never had it before.
Those friends siezed the opportunity and started giving her a hard time about never having eaten at an Olive Garden before. We thought that was absolutely hilarious when L was telling us about it.
We had some errands to run on Saturday and I suggested we give L (and B by default) her first Olive Garden experience.
The Olive Garden in the Kalamazoo metro area is on South Westnedge just north of JL Hudson Drive in front of the Crossroads Mall. You go in on Hudson Drive and turn just past the Aspen Dental to get in to the parking lot. I almost missed it but J shouted at me at the last minute and I didn’t miss my turn.
The only time I have ever been to Olive Garden (any Olive Garden) was back in 2011 when I had a gift card. J doesn’t even remember that time even though there is blog evidence of it. That’s how little of an impact it had on us.
We walked in around 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon. There’s a large waiting area right inside the door that leads to at least three separate dining rooms and a bar area. They try to give an aura of a fancier restaurant with semi-private dining areas instead of big open areas like other chains.
We were taken to the dining room the furthest back from the door and given a booth. There’s not much decor in the restaurant. The walls are beige, the floors are carpet and all of the colors are pretty neutral.
As soon as we sat down, B saw the tablet with games on it and wanted to play games instead of focus on the menu. I had to physically take it off the table until we were done ordering then I gave it back to him. These things are nice because you can also pay the bill right there. We bought a gift card which we got cash back on so we made a few bucks off the visit. We could scan the gift card right off J’s phone right at the table.
We all ordered pasta, except for B who ordered of the kids menu. The first thing brought out was the endless salad and breadsticks. We figured for sure that this would be L’s favorite part of the meal but she was really hesitant to eat the salad for some reason. The salad is really cold iceberg lettuce topped with veggies, croutons and table side grated parmesan cheese. The kids really wanted to do what they see in TikTok’s and keep the server grating cheese forever…we did not allow them to do that. The house Italian dressing is probably the best thing to come from Olive Garden so I ate way more salad than I usually would. L liked it but again, just didn’t seem in to the salad as she usually is when felt kind of odd to us.
The bread sticks were a hit with everyone. They brought out seven, warm, soft, buttery bread sticks and everyone grabbed one right away. I don’t think the server ever brought anymore but we still had one left when all was said and done so we put it in L’s leftover box so she could have it later.
I stuck with my typical Italian restaurant order and picked the Lasagna Classico. The dish is simple with pasta, Parmesan, mozzarella, pecorino roman, and meat sauce stacked in layers. Simple. Classic. Delicious. I ate about half of it only because I ended up eating most of B’s meal. I figured if I was going to take something home, I’d take home the lasagna because I love cold lasagna for some reason.
J and L both did the create your own pasta option. J picked the Rigatoni with the Five Cheese Marinara.
L picked Rigatoni with Meat Sauce.
This was the best option for both of them. J was going to just pick marinara but was happy she chose the five cheese sauce which was a little creamier. L likes meat sauce but I go way too heavy on the meat when I make it at home. This was much less meatier and she really liked it. Both of them took about half home for another meal.
B ordered off the kids menu and instead of picking pasta or even chicken tenders, he went with a Kids Pizza which comes with French fries…which I think is hilarious for an Italian restaurant. B took one small bite of the pizza and noped out. He said it was gross. I took a bite and it was fine. It’s just made with the pasta sauce so it’s pretty thin and tastes more like a pasta sauce than a pizza sauce. I didn’t force him to eat. He had just had cereal before we left the house so I knew he wasn’t super hungry. The fries were simple frozen restaurant supply store fries. He’s not a big fry eater anyway so I just ate all of those. I figured if I was going to fill up on something, the lasagna and pizza would be better cold than the fries would be.
Our bill for lunch was right around $60.
L was impressed with her first Olive Garden visit and very excited to tell her friends she has now eaten at Olive Garden. The rest of us, meh. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s good. But it’s just Italian food. There’s nothing that really sets Olive Garden apart from any local Italian place other than the salad and bread sticks. I always prefer local over chain but to be honest, I don’t eat Italian that much when we eat out. Almost $20 for a pasta dish always seems ridiculous to me.
If L asks to go back, I won’t say no, but it’s not something I’m going to suggest myself.
SW Michigan Dining 